


Swimming In the Stars

by Filigranka



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Study Done By Another Character ;), F/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Political Alliances, Post-Canon, Sex For Non-Romantic Reasons, Worldbuilding, assholes in love, for the purpose of forging a political alliance, sorta. but with a healthy dose of mutual attraction, well for a given values of "value". more like pretty assholes making out, well tiny pieces of Arkanis' worldbuilding to be precise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27912430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: For a man born on Arkanis, Hux found its rain very unnerving.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Carise Sindian
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	Swimming In the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [engmaresh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/gifts).



On Arkanis, dry gardens were places of land carefully shielded from rain and drained with sets of complicated apparatus—sometimes also keeping the lower humidity, but higher temperature of air—for a purpose of cultivating plants, mostly flowers, from other planets. They were popular among the highest class, non-broke nobility and rich bourgeoise both, a show of one’s cosmopolitanism, taste and wealth.

Hux should have been safe here, in Carise’s dry garden, standing between colourful exotic flora, the rain falling on the roof above him—hard, clear tap-tap-tap—and splashing on the ground outside the dry garden’s bubble. Hux should have been safe here, for he was considered a deceased man(a man who had seen the defeat of two orders he’d belonged to and yet miraculously, dishonourably, treacherously, had escaped the debris of their fall, a man running on sheer stubbornness, spite and fear; ah, a dead man, after all). Hux should have been safe, because following Exegol’s battle and the victory of the varied allies of Princess Organa, the galaxy spiralled into a chaos of myriad different, independent systems, locked in battles against each other; mostly economic and diplomatic, because now even weapon dealers were tired of war. Hux should have been safe here, foremost, because he had enough blackmail material on Carise to make selling himself to the highest bidder—families of the Hosnian System’s citizens, he wager—lethally unprofitable.

And yet, he found the murmur of the rain unnerving (it’d have drowned out the sound of steps or other alarming noises), the colours of the plants eye-searing, and, above all, Carise having him wait for her: damn offending. Not feelings of someone safe. Someone safe would find the rain soothing, admire the garden and focus on composing a compliment about it, thankful the host gave him time to do so.

Carise didn’t try to hide her steps. A good sign—she was alone. A bad sign—she wanted to make him calmer, which meant she assumed, correctly, he wasn’t, and might mean she planned to double-cross him and preferred to avoid the fuss.

Whatever it was, her first word was set in stone. Hux braced himself. Carise was the daughter of his father’s friends and one of his closest allies in the Order, and yet, not coming from the military, she was allowed… expected to address him with a high dose of familiarity. And, as in other parts of her life, she followed the expectations to the “t,” even if it stung Hux at the beginning, before he readjusted, every damn time.

‘Armitage!’ And here it was. ‘It’s really you!’

He turned around. Carise stood at the doorstep, one hand placed dramatically over her heart, fingers curled in the loose, red-like wine material of her dress. Her breath was heavy, like she would have been running, but her topknot and make-up—immaculate. So much for hurrying to see him.

‘Of course it’s me,’ snarled Hux. ‘Pryde’s dead. In the current situation, no one else in the Order had any business coming back to Arkanis.’

She gestured for the droids-servants to leave. They did so with an audible whizz—on Arkanis, heavy, old, rudimentary in automatics models were favoured, because of their higher resistance to the humidity and rain.

Carise tutted. ‘I have guests from other places and parties, as well.’

‘Now? Like who?’ he challenged. In the past year, Carise had taken all the pride—and money, favours, privileges—which had come with being affiliated with the Order. Hux was sure she was getting the burn of it, now.

It was something they shared. Something very fickle, so fickle only a fool would have counted on it, coming here. But Hux had made a lot of foolish decisions in recent months.

She stayed silent, just looked at him, her chin raised proudly. Long, golden earrings framed her face, emphasised her sharp cheekbones and thin, bony shoulders.

Finally, Hux snorted. ‘Thought as much.’

He felt the need to hide his hands in the pockets of that jacket he wore. He missed his uniform and gloves. Carise’s gaze darted to his palms and he realised he curled them. Oh, great.

‘Where have you found _these_ clothes?’

‘You don’t like them?’

There was no way Carise would like them. It was a non-descriptive, black and grey set of trousers and shirt, worn by lower class, human-citizens in almost all temperate-climate planets.

‘I didn’t say _this_. The shirt suits your eyes.’

Hux rolled said eyes in a reply. ‘I hate them, too. But I couldn’t exactly go to the shop and buy something better.’ If only because he’d escaped _The Steadfast_ without credit chips. ‘I killed the first man who fit my body build I could. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a billionaire.’

‘I’ll send droids to pick up something for you. Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to avoid that sort of attention murder draws?’

‘Do you really think that the sort of attention drawn by running around in the uniform of the Order’s general would have been better?’

‘I think there’s no shortage of automated charities and free exchange places in most space ports. Or junkyards, for that matter. These don’t leave a trace.’

‘You would have had me wearing trash from a gutter?’ Hux choked on anger.

‘It’d be prudent.’

‘It’d be humiliating! But I bet this is what people like me deserve according to your lot, right?’

Carise’s face softened immediately and this just stung harder, the realisation she knew what he meant so well, that everybody would have known. Hux hissed “don’t you dare to bother,” when she opened her mouth and she, miraculously, obeyed.

‘Why have you come here?’ she asked after a moment, filled only with that damn hum of the rain.

Hux blinked, surprised by the sound of her voice. ‘Where else could I go?’ And then, when her face fell into a carefully neutral, guarded expression, he felt angry again, because damn, who she even was to be disappointed—he was sure it was a disappointment she was concealing—in him? ‘Don’t tell me you expected me to come up with some grand counter-attack plan. It’s over, over, it’s all over, we _lost_ for good this time, it’s the damn end, it’s—’ he stopped, hearing himself he began to sound unhinged. ‘It’s the end. And I have no one else to go, Carise.’

‘You have your people. On the _Finalizer_.’

Ah, the ones he’d betrayed. Yet, he hoped he could still use them… But it wouldn’t be _prudent_ to let others know about his plans, allies, maps, intel and other advantages. Not to mention the sole idea of relying on something so messy and whimsical as hope was humiliating.

‘I failed them. I don’t think they would want me back.’

‘But you think I do?’

No, not necessarily, but while Carise’s house was pretty well-guarded, she didn’t have turrets, cannons and TIE-s ready to blast him out of the sky at her disposal. And he’d counted, rightly, on her being curious and wary enough to let him in. He might have hid his blackmail materials somewhere, he might have given them to a droid with the instruction to upload them to the holonet, if he hadn’t returned…

‘I don’t know,’ he answered carefully. ‘But you don’t have to. I don’t really expect you to. You have enough of your problems, I’m sure. I just—Arkanis is my homeplanet. I assume I thought this is what one’s supposed to do, when one loses. Go home. Everything started on Jakku is in ruins, now, and before Jakku… Before Jakku I had known only Arkanis. And I don’t really know anyone here, except you.’ Maratelle had left the planet immediately after the siege. ‘A little unusual situation for “home”, I presume.’ Hux squeezed a laugh from his throat.

‘You. You and your stupid, cruel games, Armitage, I swear…’ Carise crossed the distance between them in a few quick steps and threw her arms around his neck, hiding her face in that loose, ugly shirt of his. Not-quite-his. ‘You are such a fool. Such a cruel, cruel, brilliant fool.’ Hux blinked, looking at the line at her hair, braided high enough it almost touched his nose. It was trembling and it took him a few blinks to understand Carise was almost crying. ‘Why didn’t you say anything sooner? I thought you were dead, I thought you were all dead!’

‘They are all dead.’

‘But you are not! It—it matters to me, you damn idiot. It did matter and will matter always, do you get it?’

Not quite, actually, but what Hux did get was it wouldn’t be a good answer. Instead, he embraced Carise tightly, and hoped this straight from holonet-dramas gesture would somehow help. Of course, like most of the things originating from fairy-tales, it didn’t: it only made Carise cry openly, repeating his name.

Hux was slowly coming at the conclusion he should have guided her to the chair and let her go, so she could compose herself, when she lifted her head. Her eyes were puffy and an eyelash lay at the height of her left cheekbone, but her make-up stayed on.

‘I’ve known you all my life,’ she said, her tone both serious and sad, like it was something to be grieved.

Well, knowing The Planets’ Butcher was probably a regretful circumstance, now. And since Hux would prefer to weasel out a few favours from Carise, he tried to steer her thoughts into a happier direction.

‘I’m aware. You stole my toy TIE fighter, do you remember?’

Damn clumsy attempt, he admitted. But Carise didn’t seem to listen.

‘And I planned, _wanted_ to wait with this for the day the Order would be ruling the whole galaxy, with you and me at its helm as military and civil leaders… Don’t you dare laugh! But it seems it won’t happen, so ah, I think there’s no use in waiting any longer.’

‘To do what, put a nice, long dagger in my back?’

This, actually, was the least possible of all options: even if Carise had wanted to kill him, she would have preferred a blaster or poison—but it never hurt to take the worst option off the table. Worse came to worst, Hux would at least seem _intelligent and right._

At best, Carise would finally stop crying, and begin to laugh, like now, and…

And at as a matter of fact, in reality, right now—she kissed him.

Men and their tendency to break down after little setbacks, mused Carise with a mix of weariness and fondness. So arrogant to believe everything was supposed to always go their way.

In Carise’s experience, it made them easy to fool. Just put an effort to never surprise them, never move a step outside of their expected image of the world—and yourself—and voila! You could plot behind their backs, support them from the shadows and take the profits, bide your time waiting for a perfect moment to, as Armitage had put it, place a nice, long dagger in their backs.

Armitage was sleeping with his back turned to her. She could caress his spine, kiss every bone of it or pull a blaster from her nightstand, place the barrel at the bottom of his skull and shoot, take that reward money. The public opinion would forgive her some involvement in the Order’s business if she brought it General Hux’s head.

General Hux, Brendol Hux, saved her mother’s life when she had been a young girl, during the Clone Wars. Her parents had repeated that story time and time again. It had been why she’d met Armitage: they all had come to the Academy for an annual visit, full of ritualised, unspoken thanks, gifts and renewed promises of support.

Armitage hated his father enough to kill him; for what Carise had heard, he’d had pretty good reasons. But whoever Brendol Hux was under the privacy of his roof, he’d fought in the Clone Wars bravely, saved her mother and—and Carise would never hurt the son he’d loved enough to call his. It’d be incredibly dishonourable.

Also, Armitage was so damn handsome.

Handsome, petty, cruel, stupidly arrogant and too easy to read, hell of an engineer, very good administrative and logistics manager… Carise could visualise his file, but all the years of obtaining intelligence and pouring money and time into analyses concentrated into that silliness, most obvious of them all. Armitage was _beautiful_ , especially when he tried not to plead directly, especially when there were shadows under his eyes and bruises on his body, and when his ribs looked ready to cut through his skin. And his skin, by the way, looked so thin and pale, almost translucent, almost disappearing under one’s touch, like snow.

Part of it was the post-coital tide of attraction and care. It’d be gone in less than a day, sooner if Carise focused on dissipating it. But if she couldn’t play against Armitage, the most logical, honourable thing left was to support him. A little surge of hormones might help with this… Unless it’d blind her, make her forget about all his vices and flaws, all his mistakes and that damning title of the murderer of planets, which led Armitage here in the first place.

She doubted she really was his only option, though, that there were no hidden accounts or shelters, no secret boxes full with jewels, kyber, maps, designs and blackmail materials. However, she believed Armitage had felt shocked by the Exegol disaster, the fall of everything he had known, shocked, disappointed, hurt and scared, in a way. That he wasn’t keen on looking his _Finalizer’s_ crew in the eyes, facing _their_ own disappointment and fear, that he wanted to postpone it… For a long time.

This, Carise wasn’t going to allow. If she had had the Order’s military rank, Armitage could have taken his sweet time, wallowing in self-pity, pouting and _healing_ (well, she amended crudely, still in _that_ mood, as long as he’d have also taken her fingers down his throat and ass… but he hadn’t complained earlier that evening), but alas. And she knew better than to expect soldiers to obey the civilian, even of her levels of brilliance. But they would obey _General Hux_ , no matter what they had thought about slapping “General” on “such a kid” before, if only to be free from responsibility.

Years ago, after Princess Organa had taken away her birthright, cut her out of the Sindians’ blood, Carise had sworn she would get back the place and titles she deserved or forge herself better ones. So, she would kick some energy and that ruthless determination back into Armitage, talk after talk, touch after touch, kiss after kiss. And she would stand by him when he would try appear before his officers, when he’d make a speech to his soldiers, when he’d negotiate with Kuat Shipyards and try to buy some shreds of political support—enough to escape the Republic’s revenge.

The First Order had sent countless colonisation missions to the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions; planets, moons and asteroids all settled—or industrialised—by its most loyal people. Nobody except High Command knew the location of them all and even if that intel was leaked, neither the New Republic, nor Leia’s allies would have the time, resources or will to help these distant outposts, leaving them to dwindle or downright perish.

Unless, of course, a saviour would come on the durasteel wings of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer and its fighters, with Carise… Armitage at its helm, but Carise nearby, commanding the miniature fleet of her luxurious personal ships and yachts.

The vast, dark cosmos around them, glimmering with endless stars, the dazzling, blinding white of hyperspace opening for them—splitting that great, ancient, powerful matter of the universe in half to let them pass… Perfect. Also, why not: their bodies next to each other, lit only by the white of the hyperspace coming in from the windows, Armitage’s mouth just as greedy as his soul—she’d teach him, she’d teach him _everything_ a woman might need from a man—his hands inside her, meticulous and careful, the hands of an engineer, sending sparks through her body, blowing up her pupils like the damn best spice, supernovas exploding beneath her eyelids…

It’d be perfect.

Carise hummed, stretching herself, letting the warmth whirling between her thighs fill her whole body, tingle in the tip of her nose, her scalp, toes and fingertips. Armitage stirred beside her and opened his eyes, already clear and attentive.

She notice how smoothly his hand moved to his hip and smiled. Of course, there was no blaster there now, but a good instinct is a good instinct. Worthy of a reward.

‘Armitage.’ She leaned in and kissed the corner of his right eyebrow. ‘Tell me, which title suits me better: “Queen of the New Regions” or “Queen of Pirates”?’ _His_ rank was a pretty crucial and useful part of her plans, it was only fair to let him have a say in them, too.

‘Title? What title…’ Armitage blinked and then kissed her chin, laughing.

His teeth lightly scraped her skin. It was pleasant enough, Carise decided to let his great offence—nobility was not a laughing matter!—slide.

And then he pulled her to his lap, straight on his cock, while his teeth closed on her lower lip, almost drawing blood. Carise allowed him a few messy thrusts before she rolled her hips to get a better angle—men, men, men, so impatient!— and fell still, quirking an eyebrow at him.

Armitage was polite enough to stop, too; he even quickly calmed his breath. This smug cruelty Carise remembered was finally back on his face, eerily similar to longing. She didn’t mind. A little thrill could be nice and Armitage was far too calculating, particularly when it came to his survival, to risk going too far and spoiling her mood.

He caressed the corner of her mouth with his thumb, slowly, holding her gaze all the time. No wince, no attempts at getting some friction, but also no pulling back. Good.

‘About that titles you asked…’ He paused.

A perfect moment for Carise to throw an encouraging smile. Hux seemed to relax, the muscles of his shoulders slackening slightly. He smirked, now openly, greedy, proud, triumphant, the student knowing he would give the perfect answer:

‘My lady, why not take both?’

**Author's Note:**

> <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3  
> to EM for beta!


End file.
